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PORTSIDE CULTURE

ILLUMINATION ON THE AMERICAN RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE  
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Joel Wentz
November 14, 2024
The Englewood Review of Books

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_ This book looks at the emergence, among some white Christians in
the USA, of a religious culture based on shoring up white identity and
racism while being "perniciously shrouded in Christian language,
expression, symbols and thought forms." _

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The Religion of WhitenessHow Racism Distorts Christian FaithMichael O.
Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey IIOxford University PressISBN:
9780197746288

At the heart of the bold new study from Michael Emerson and Glenn
Bracey is a provocative answer to a question that is plaguing so many
observers of American religion and politics. The question: how do we
account for the wildly different and “distinct visions of race and
faith in American life” today? (9) These visions animate divergent
forms of political engagement and historical sensibilities that are on
either side of a “vast gulf separating people who ostensibly share
the same faith.” (9) Accounting for the _fact_ of these divergent
social visions (the _descriptive _task) is part and parcel of so much
punditry and social commentary today, but _The Religion of Whiteness_
is not merely another contribution in the category of writing
reflecting on, and bemoaning, the ills of polarization. Rather,
Emerson and Bracey propose, boldly, that precisely what is buttressing
these visions is a _religion,_ a religion complete with dogma,
practices, and collective-identity-formation power. This religion is
not Christianity, a religion devoted to worship of Christ, but is
instead a religion of “whiteness,” devoted to shoring up white
racial identity, and perpetuating inequality and division along racial
lines in American society, but perniciously shrouded in Christian
language, expression, symbols and thought-forms.

As mentioned, this is a bold proposal, and the pressing question then
is: do Emerson and Bracey marshal a convincing argument?

_The Religion of Whiteness_ is not primarily a work of theory. The
entire project is constructed upon the collection of sociological
data, which is categorized and reflected upon throughout. That said,
Emerson and Bracey deploy theoretical sociological work to helpful
ends. They certainly understand the controversial nature of their
proposal, and so carefully rely upon concepts like “betrayal
trauma” (chapter 2), “opportunity hoarding” (chapter 3) as well
as Emile Durkeim’s understanding of the experience of religious
“collective effervescence (also chapter 3) to intentionally build
towards the case that “whiteness” (see below for their definition
of this term) is a more-accurate term than “Christian” to describe
what a specific type of American religion is organized around. 

Before discussing their data, Emerson and Bracey put forward a
definition of “whiteness” itself. 

Whiteness is not some ephemeral vague concept. It is _white people
(along with supporters of other hues) and their dominance._ That is,
whiteness is the imagined right that those designated as racially
white are the norm, the standard by which all others are measured and
evaluated. It is the imagined right to be superior in almost every way
– theologically, morally, legally, economically, and culturally. It
is that power, now centuries upon centuries old, that is worshipped,
felt, protected and defended. (42, emphasis original)

As a reader who has been persuaded by Jonathan Tran (see _Asian
Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism)_ that “whiteness”
has become an unhelpful term, I wrestled with the authors’ decision
to employ it in this study, and indeed to centralize the concept. I
can appreciate the choice to employ a careful definition for the sake
of clarity (and the authors also acknowledge their departure from Tran
in an endnote), but if “whiteness” is essentially about power and
cultural domination in a way that can be participated in by
“supporters of other hues” (other racial identities?), then at
what point is an ostensibly-racial term no longer relying on racial
markers in a way that undercuts its usefulness in a descriptive sense?
Indeed, the slipperiness of the identity “white” is precisely what
many theorists argue has contributed to its pernicious power over
history (see the landmark study _How the Irish Became White_ by Noel
Ignatiev), as well as the ability of “white” people to deny the
existence of the category in a way that falsely absolves them of the
responsibility of ownership for their own accrued social power by
virtue of occupying the social identity marker. But far be it for this
one book review to attempt to settle this endlessly complicated matter
of social theory! I only note it here because of the importance of the
concept of “whiteness” to what Emerson and Bracey are discussing,
and also to say that regardless of where you land on the question of
the theoretical usefulness of a term like “whiteness,” there is
much to be challenged by in the ensuing discussion of data in _The
Religion of Whiteness._

In a revelatory chapter (chapter 4, titled “Is it Real? What the
Evidence Says), Emerson and Bracey present a carefully-controlled
study, in which participants were primed on their views of the
relevance of scripture for matters of “right and wrong.” All
participants who indicated that scripture _does_ matter for
determining these issues were asked specific questions about swearing
(vulgar language), treatment of foreigners, communal confession of sin
and the importance of listening to minority groups in society. The
responses are separated according to racial categories, and the
results are startling (if, sadly, not entirely surprising). American
Christians, in short, seem to pay lip service to the nonnegotiable
importance of scripture in making moral, social calculations, but in
practice, something _other than_ scripture itself is controlling their
moral determinations. This “something else,” as enumerated by
Emerson and Bracey, is “whiteness,” and if the most skeptical
reader disagrees with them, the burden is on the reader to explain
what exactly to propose instead.

Finally, in the section of the book that was probably the most
personally resonant for this reviewer, Emerson and Bracey discuss what
they call “the remnant,” or, the white Christians who have
experienced acute tension (or downright disavowal) in their faith
communities because of their open discussions of race (chapter 6). In
other words, white Christians who point to the ills of idolizing
“whiteness,” are anathematized, further reifying the functional
power of the identity of “white.” The qualitative data (anecdotes
and quotes) in this chapter are gripping, and for some personal
reasons, hit close to home, and underline the general sense that the
study is illuminating something in the current American religious
landscape that is worth further reflection.

While my own qualms with the concept of “whiteness” itself were
not necessarily smoothed over by reading this book, that is also not
the intent of this important study. Emerson and Bracey have provided
an important breakdown of unsettling data, buttressed by thoughtful
engagement with theoretical literature, that all points back to the
transhistorical, undeniable, tragic reality that Christian community
and practice can all-too-easily be poisoned by sinful social
constructs and identity markers. Those of us in the American church
today would do well to interact with their provocative work.

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